PART I: ORIGINS AND CONTEXī OF THE DEVĪMĀHĀTMYA
A Brief History
1 J. Desmond Clark and Martin A. J. Williams, “Paleoenvironments and Prehistory in North Central India: A Preliminary Report,” in Studies in the Archaeology of India and Pakistan, Jerome Jacobson, ed. (New Dehli: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., 1986), pp. 31–32.
2 Clark and Williams, “Paleoenvironments,” p. 39.
3 Prithvi Kumar Agrawala, Goddesses in Ancient India (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1984), pp. 26–27.
4 Savitri Dhawan, Mother Goddesses in Early Indian Religion (Jaipur and New Delhi: National Publishing House, 1997), p. 14.
5 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 27.
6 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 16.
7 Dilip K. Chakrabarti, The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 123.
8 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 24.
9 Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (Karachi: Oxford University Press, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, 1998), pp. 105–106.
10 Ibid.
11 Agrawala, Goddesses, pp. 35–36.
12 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 33.
13 Jonathan Z. Smith and William Scott Green, eds., The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995), 483.
14 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 46.
15 Ibid.
16 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 79.
17 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 48.
18 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 93.
19 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 96.
20 Ralph ī. H. Griffith, trans., Hinduism: The Rig Veda, Sacred Writings, vol. 5 (New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1992), pp. 640–641.
21 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 57.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Tracy Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 32.
25 Agrawala, Goddesses, pp. 56–60.
26 Thomas B. Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), p. 255.
27 Kenoyer, Ancient Cities, p. 183.
28 Kenoyer, Ancient Cities, p. 29.
29 Griffith, Hinduism, p. 3 n. 10.
30 Chakrabarti, Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities, pp. 90–91.
31 Griffith, Hinduism, p. 3 n. 12.
32 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 89.
33 Brian M. Fagan, ed., The Oxford Companion to Archaeology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 351.
34 Paul G. Bahn, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 258.
35 Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), Shakti and Shakta (New York: Dover Publications, 1978), pp. 136–138.
36 Thomas B. Cobum, Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devī- Māhātmya and a Study of Its Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 125.
37 Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1998), pp. 1–2.
38 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 206.
39 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 20.
The Devīmāhātmya’s Origins, Structure, and Context
1 C. Mackenzie Brown, The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 159.
2 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 8.
3 John Michael Greer, “Myth, History and Pagan Origins,” The Pomegranate 9 (1999): 45.
4 Ibid.
5 John Bowker, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 673.
6 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 138.
7 Brown, Triumph of the Goddess, p. 90.
8 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 259.
9 Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1970), p. 48.
10 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 290.
11 Swami Satprakashananda, The Universe, God, and God-Realization: From the Viewpoint of Vedanta (St. Louis: The Vedanta Society, 1977), pp. 110–111.
12 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 274.
13 David Kinsley, The Goddesses ’Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 4.
14 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 116.
15 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 119.
16 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 227–229
17 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 120.
18 Brian Hayden, “An Archeological Evaluation of the Gimbutas Paradigm,” The Pomegranate 6 (1998): 38–39.
19 Kenoyer, Ancient Cities, pp. 114–115.
20 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 222.
21 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 24.
22 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 249.
23 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 120 n. 19.
24 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 275–281.
25 Thomas B. Cobum, “Devī, The Great Goddess,” in Devī: Goddesses of India, John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), p. 41.
26 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 267–275.
27 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 221.
28 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 24.
29 Cynthia Ann Humes, “Vindhyavāsinī” in Devī: Goddesses of India, John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 49.
30 Humes, “Vindhyavāsinī,” pp. 51–52.
31 N. N. Bhattacharyya, The Indian Mother Goddess, 3rd enlarged ed. (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1999), p. 63.
32 Humes, “Vindhyavāsinī,” p. 57.
33 David R. Kinsley, “Kālī: Blood and Death Out of Place,” in Devī: Goddesses of India, Hawley and Wulff, eds., p. 78.
34 Kinsley, “Kālī,” p. 78.
35 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 111.
36 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 325.
37 David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), p. 156.
38 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 325.
39 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 159.
40 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 325.
41 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 159.
42 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 160.
43 Ibid.
44 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 136.
45 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 155.
46 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 154.
47 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 100.
48 Brown, Triumph of the Goddess, p. 137.
49 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 101.
50 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 106.
51 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 108.
52 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 110.
53 Kinsley, The Goddesses’ Mirror, p. 14.
54 C. Mackenzie Brown, The Devī Gītā: The Song of the Goddess: A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 260 n. 2.
55 Glory of the Mother (Bombay: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 1991), p. 7.
The Śri Durgāsaptaślokīstotra
1 S. Shankaranarayanan, trans., Glory of the Divine Mother (Devīmāhātmyam), 2nd ed. (Pondicherry: Dipti Publications, 1973), p. 77.
PART II: COMMENTARY NOTES
Chapter 1
1 Thomas B. Cobum, Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devī- Māhātmya and a Study of Its Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 112–114.
2 C. Mackenzie Brown, The Devī Gītā: The Song of the Goddess (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 65–66.
3 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 79.
4 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 95.
5 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 134.
6 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 133.
7 Brown, The Devī Gītā, p. 97 n. 6.
8 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, pp. 134–135.
9 C. Mackenzie Brown, The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 137.
10 Thomas B. Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), pp. 130–131.
11 Brown, The Devī Gītā, p. 73.
Chapter 2
1 Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), Shakti and Shakta (New York: Dover Publications, 1978), p. 224.
2 Brown, The Devī Gītā, pp. 97–98.
3 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 230.
4 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 98–99.
5 Thomas B. Cobum, “Devī, The Great Goddess,” in Devī: Goddesses of India, John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), p. 40.
6 Sir Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1899), p. 83.
Chapter 3
1 Prithvi Kumar Agrawala, Goddesses in Ancient India (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1984), p. 120.
2 Sarah Caldwell, “Bhagavati, Ball of Fire,” in Devī: Goddesses of India, Hawley and Wulff, eds., p. 196.
Chapter 4
1 F. Eden Pargiter, trans., The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (Delhi and Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1995), p. 482.
2 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 48.
3 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 167.
4 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 158 n. 294.
5 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 162.
6 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 171.
7 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 173.
8 John Bowker, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 487.
9 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 13.
10 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 478.
11 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 700.
12 MahendranathGupta(M.), The Gospel of Śri Ramakrishna, Swami Nikhilananda, trans. (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942), pp. 499–500.
13 Swami Satprakashananda, The Universe, God and God-Realization: From the Viewpoint of Vedanta (St. Louis: Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 1977), p. 132.
14 Sir John Woodroffe, The Garland of Letters: Studies in the Mantra-Sāstra, 9th ed. (Pondicherry: Ganesh & Company, 1989), p. 30.
15 Satprakashananda, The Universe, p. 134.
16 Swami Prabhavananda, The Eternal Companion: Brahmananda, Teachings and Reminiscences with a Biography, 3rd rev. ed. (Hollywood, CA: Vedanta Press, 1970), p. 5.
17 Swāmī Jagadīśvarānanda, trans., Devī Mahatmyam (Glory of the Divine Mother): Seven-Hundred Mantras on Śri Durga (Mylapore, Madras: Śri Ramakrishna Math, 1969) p. 56 n. 7.
18 Satprakashananda, The Universe, p. 139.
19 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 203.
20 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 116.
Chapter 5
1 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 222.
2 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 239.
3 Cynthia Ann Humes, “Vindhyavāsinl: Local Goddess Yet Great Goddess,” in Devī: Goddesses of India, Hawley and Wulff, eds., p. 68.
4 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 232.
5 Humes, “Vindhyavāsinī,” pp. 68–69.
6 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 196.
7 T. V. Narayana Menon, The Thousand Names of the Divine Mother: Śrī Lalitā Sahasranāma with Commentary, N. M. Namboodiri, trans. (San Ramon, CA: Mata Amritanandamyai Center, 1996), p. 159.
8 Menon, Thousand Names, p. 159.
9 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 197–198.
10 Brown, The Devī-Gītā, p. 4.
11 Brown, The Devī-Gītā, p. 86.
12 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 174–175.
13 Agrawala, Goddesses, pp. 111–112.
14 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 13.
15 Swami Siddhanathananda, trans., Devi Mahatmyam (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1995), p. 159.
16 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 273.
17 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 280.
18 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 274–275.
19 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 278.
20 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 275.
21 Swami Satprakashananda, Methods of Knowledge: Perceptual, Non-perceptual, and Transcendental, According to Advaita Vedanta (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965), 107.
22 Satprakashananda, Methods of Knowledge, p. 108.
23 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 270.
24 Ajit Mookerjee, Ritual Art of India (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1985), p. 170.
Chapter 6
1 Swami Atmajnanananda, personal correspondence dated March 16, 1998.
Chapter 7
1 Gupta, Gospel of Śri Ramakrishna, p. 135.
2 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 135–136.
3 David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), p. 148.
4 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, pp. 136–137.
Chapter 8
1 Swami Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, 2nd ed. (Mylapore, Madras: Śri Ramakrishna Math, 1982), p. xiv.
2 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, p. xiv.
3 Ibid.
4 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, p. 63.
5 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, p. 81.
6 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, pp. 132–133.
7 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 186.
8 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 325.
9 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 232.
10 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, pp. 98–99.
Chapter 9
1 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, pp. 102–103.
2 Pushpendra Kumar, Sakti and Her Episodes: On the Basis of Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology, 2nd rev. ed. (Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1986), p. 77.
Chapter 10
1 S. Shankaranarayanan, trans., Glory of the Divine Mother, 2nd ed. (Pondicherry: Dipti Publications, 1973), p. 6.
Chapter 11
1 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, p. 124.
2 Barbara Powell, Windows into the Infinite: A Guide to the Hindu Scriptures (Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1996) p. 340.
3 Agrawala, Goddesses, pp. 62–63.
4 Swami Yatiswarananda, Universal Prayers: Selected and Translated from Sanskrit Religious Literature (Mylapore, Madras: Śri Ramakrishna Math, 1977), p. 141.
5 Pargiter, The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāna, p. 512.
6 Atmajnanananda, personal correspondence, March 16, 1998.
7 Powell, Windows into the Infinite, p. 334.
8 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 138.
9 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 171.
10 Mookerjee, Ritual Art of India, p. 37.
11 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 107.
12 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 264.
13 Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, pp. 97–98.
14 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, pp. 67, 188.
15 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 34.
16 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 39.
17 Ralph ī. H. Griffith, trans., Hinduism: The Rig Veda (New York: Book-of-the- Month Club, 1992), p. 3 n. 12.
18 Agrawala, Goddesses, p. 89.
19 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 139.
20 N. N. Bhattacharyya, The Indian Mother Goddess, 3rd enlarged ed. (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1999), p. 59.
21 Brown, The Triumph of the Goddess, p. 293 n. 17.
22 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 161.
23 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, pp. 171–172.
24 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 162.
25 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 239 n. 23.
26 Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, p. 143.
Chapter 12
1 Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya, p. 120.
PART III: THE AṄGAS
Devyāh Kavacam
1 Swami Sarvadevananda, personal interview, August 7, 1999.
2 Swami Satprakashananda, The Universe, God and God-Realization: From the Viewpoint of Vedanta (St. Louis: Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 1977), pp. 122–123.
Argalāstotra
1 Thomas B. Cobum, Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devī- Māhātmya and a Study of Its Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 107.
Kllakastotra
1 Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Chaṇḍī Pāṭh: She Who Tears Apart Thought (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995), 89.
Rātrisūkta
1 Thomas B. Cobum, Devī-Māhātmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), pp. 265–266.
2 Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), Shakti and Shakta (New York: Dover Publications, 1978), p. 110.
3 S. Shankaranarayanan, trans., Glory of the Divine Mother (Devīmāhātmya), 2nd ed. (Pondicherry: Dipti Publications, 1973), p. 123.
4 Ibid.
Devīsūkta
1 Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 110.
2 Huston Smith, Essays on World Religion, M. Darrol Bryant, ed. (New York: Paragon House, 1992), pp. 135–153.
3 Vasudeva S. Agrawala, Devī-Māhātmyam: The Glorification of the Great Goddess (Ramnagar, Varanasi: All-India Kashiraj Trust, 1963), p. 226.
4 Agrawala, Devī-Māhātmyam, p. 231.
5 Sarvadevananda, personal interview, August 7, 1999.
Prādhānika Rahasya
1 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 108.
2 Cobum, Encountering the Goddess, p. 109.
Mürtirahasya
1 Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya, History of the Śākta Religion (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996), pp. 15–16.